Regeneration destroys the big society

Seldom are regeneration measures designed to benefit the community and are normally the result of backdoor discussions between big business and local authority apparatchiks.

Think I’m being too harsh or conspiratorial?

The place in which I grew up, Pitsea, a small town in the east of the Basildon district of south Essex, has recently seen the approval of a £30 million scheme which will knock down an aldi supermarket, a pound shop, a fish and chip restaurant which doubles up as a entertainment house at the weekends, and the local swimming pool which has been there for as long as I can remember.

In its place will be a Morrisons supermarket and a large car park. This will accompany the large Tesco superstore 10 minutes away – which when it was first built was the largest in Europe – with its large car park and 24-hour opening times.

The area has a Lidl and various small chains – it is very well served by shops already, but not a swimming pool, for which a train or bus journey is needed to Basildon, that is until it is used during the Olympics when I gather it will be near-impossible to use.

Opposing the regeneration measures were 1,600 signatories – but they were ignored. For perspective, in this country if an e-petition receives 100,000 signatures a Commons debate is guaranteed. That is 100,000 inhabitants in a country of around 62,000,000. Yet, in a town with a population of around 25,000, a signature count of 1,600 is too few for consideration. Farcical.

Recently a block of luxury apartments have been built to serve weekday commuters going to London for work, who are most likely to have homes elsewhere in the country, and plans are being settled to knock down the remains of the Railway Pub which was housed in one of the few landmarks in Pitsea – a house built by Harold George Howard, a local businessman in the area operating in the early 1900s, who wanted to make Pitsea “something special”.

But today Pitsea is a design of community destruction. The social capital accrued with the swimming pool will now be lost, replaced by another supermarket. People living together in the ‘big society’ dream is under attack from building apartments with the sole intention of serving those who are never here.

No conspiracy then. While the government, rightly, wants us to participate more in our local communities and curb reliance on the state as a co-parent, under their noses regeneration measures seek only to make this harder, in working class towns like the one I was raised in.

I’m sure this is the case in other areas too, and I’d be delighted and horrified to hear such stories. But is it the case that this government will end up looking more like the enemy, than the facilitator, of the big society?

Has the site already been sold to Morrisons? It’s likely that sale would only proceed when planning permission was granted.

If it’s not, it’s probably worth residents speaking to a sympathetic local councillor about an emergency motion to council along lines of:

“That council delays sale of site in light of representations from community groups to the effect that;

a) the [swimming baths] site might be requested for inclusion on the forthcoming Register of Assets of Community Value, the compilation of which is a requirement of the Localism Act, on the basis that it is a facility of recent ‘social value’

b) the said community group(s) may wish, having seen the site’s inclusion on the Register, wish to move forward with a business plan and possible purchase of the site, either at market value or at lower than market value under the provisions for such sale set out in Local Government Act 2003

c) in such circumstances, it is not reasonable to continue with the sale of the land until such time as the policy intentions set out in the Localism Act have been enacted.”

Even if local councillors won’t play ball, a strongly worded but technically worded letter to the Cheif Exec, with a subtle threat if court action unless due consideration is given, might be enough to hold up proceedings and allow time for a fuller defence plan, using the Localism Act’s new provisions, to come into play (also taking into account the Open Services stuff and the Social Value Act 2012)

Have sent your comment to the relevant people Paul. I know cllrs are involved now, but ideas such as the technical letter, with mention of the Register of Assets of Community Value in particular, I’m sure will be very helpful to them.